


Empty nest

by Charles_Rockafellor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Cats, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Post-Ascension, Uplifted species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24370558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: Uplifted Cats' perspective of ascended humanity.  Only a short, poignant story of empty loss by one generation and accidental neglect by the next, but it could be crafted to a longer search (finding their own place in the world, forging a future to look forward to, possibly several directions at once).𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Family, Icewall, Sci-fi





	Empty nest

The Humans had all gone away, cities emptied.

Abandoned.

Cat food plants were abundant (Dog food, Hamster food, and others, as well), but no new light sources, magic-box shows, etc.. Eventually, they would have to fend for themselves.

Where had their families gone to? Their Humans? When will they _come home_?

Magical caves could fail; storms could wipe out Cat food plants, reducing them to savagery of eating other animals; occasional war broke out with the Dog tribes. _Why?_

Some had given up their faith that one day Humans would return and usher in a new age of peace and plenty. Others believed that their prayers fell on deaf or uncaring ears, and that they must now do for themselves what once was provided for them. Still others felt that it was a test – that they must prove themselves worthy for the Humans to return and love them once more, that perhaps sacrifices were demanded implicitly.

Whatever the reasons or results, one fact remained throughout: it was lonely.

There were giants in those days. Her grandmother told tales of laps, scritchings behind the ears and belly rubs, warm hearths and bowls of milk... “ _...but why didn't they take us with them?_ ” she would lament, a constant refrain.

Grandma Fuzz had been a kitten when they left. She hadn't understood what was going on, but she'd seen it all, and her mother had tried to explain things as she'd grown older. Mom had missed all of it entirely, but had grown up with Grandma's stories under a broken and lost generation, her own adrift without guiding parenting.

Her grandmother was among the last living Cats to have borne eyewitness to it all. She and her mother would be among the last few to have heard first hand accounts. In the first generation or two it was all current events; in ten it might be history or legend; in one hundred, pure myth. In one thousand, would any of it even be remembered still? And if they ever caught up to the Humans, what would they find, and would either remember the other at all?

It was easily observable that Grandma's tales were true. Artifacts abounded that were clearly beyond their own ability to create. The soft, comfortable things that held strange shapes and had been crafted for much larger creatures of a form entirely other than their own. The magic-boxes told strange tales themselves, showing mythical creatures five times her own height striding about, speaking at length in a strange language of barks and gobbles. Grandma Fuzz said that those were the Humans who had made all of these things and more, this land all around them, the world as they knew it reshaped to their own whims. She spent all of her waking hours watching the magic-box and reminiscing to her children and grandchildren.

**O ~~~ O**


End file.
